Long-lost pen pals reunite after 58 years

Norwegian man, California woman started corresponding in 1948

ENCINITAS  Sixty-six years ago, a boy in Norway and a girl in L.A. began writing letters to each other. On Friday, they met for the very first time.

Over a traditional Norwegian lunch of smoked salmon, caviar, boiled eggs and brown goat cheese in Encinitas, long-lost pen pals Egil Nilsen, 78, and Suellen Rowlison, 74, caught up on each other’s lives since the last letter they exchanged in 1956. In that two-page note, the teenage Nilsen broke off their correspondence because he had fallen in love with a girl from a neighboring island.

“I have to stop writing now ... my girlfriend is very jealous,” he wrote in the letter dated July 12 of that year. It closed with the words: “You will always have a boyfriend in Norway.”

The two reunited last week after Nilsen tracked Rowlison down through an Internet search in December. He and his wife Wenche (the girl from the other island, who he married 56 years ago) would be visiting family in North County this month and he asked Rowlison if they could all meet.

“Of course I was surprised and excited to hear from him after all these years,” said Rowlison, who flew down from her home in Chico for the meeting. “They came all the way from Norway. It’s the least I could do to come down for the day.”

Although the years have dimmed the memories of the written courtship between the pen pals, they never forgot each other. Rowlison still has many of the yellowing letters that Nilsen sent her, a handful of photographs and several of his gifts — a pair of blue woolen mittens, a linen table runner and a holiday tablecloth. Nilsen also kept one of her gifts, a small silver ring stamped with a horse’s head, as well as the photograph he used to track her down after 58 years without a word.

The first letter Egil Nelsen wrote to Suellen Rowlison in 1948, top, and the final letter written in 1956, bottom. Photo: Jamie Scott Lytle, copyright

The first letter Egil Nelsen wrote to Suellen Rowlison in 1948, top, and the final letter written in 1956, bottom. Photo: Jamie Scott Lytle, copyright

“Over the last few years, I have wondered what happened to Suellen,” Nilsen said. “This has turned out to be a very good experience.”

Nilsen grew up on an island in Southern Norway, where his sixth-grade teacher encouraged letter-writing as a way to improve the students’ English skills. In the fall of 1948, the teacher handed out the addresses of American schoolchildren who were interested in being pen pals. The 13-year-old Nilsen received the address of Suellen Skinner, a 9-year-old fourth grader in the L.A. suburb of Downey, and he mailed her a cordial introduction.

Over the next eight years, they wrote to each other frequently, often enclosing a photograph. The best part of the relationship for Nilsen were the gifts, sent by Skinner’s family each year on his birthday and at Christmas.

“We had a good relationship for many years and the gifts from the U.S. were especially exciting since Norway had just been through World War II and the selection in the stores was very limited,” Nilsen said.

Rowlison was 14 when the relationship came to an abrupt end in 1956. She said she can’t remember how she felt about it at the time, though she has saved many of his letters, photos and gifts to this day. She later married a man named Rowlison, had two daughters (now 40 and 42), divorced and moved to Northern California. She served two terms on Gilroy’s city council and is an active volunteer and environmental activist.

Nilsen — who went on to a successful career in Norway’s rail and textile industries — married Wenche in 1958 and they had two daughters. In the late 1980s, their youngest daughter, Anna Margrete, came to North County as a foreign exchange student for her senior year of high school. She spent the year in the Cardiff home of Edgar and Renate Engert, and romance bloomed between her and their teenage son, Jim. Four years later, they married.

Jim and Anne Engert now live in Encinitas with their children Nicholas, 14, and Amanda, 11. Over the past two decades, the Nilsens have been flying over for semiannual visits from Norway. When their latest trip was approaching this winter, Nilsen said he finally decided to look up his former pen pal and was surprised at how quickly he found her.

A records search through an ancestry organization turned up the marriage record of a Suellen Skinner, and then when he did a Google search of “Suellen Rowlison,” he found numerous articles about her public service efforts. He compared an online photo of Rowlison with the snapshot he’d kept over the years and saw a physical resemblance, so he sent her an email with a description of their childhood friendship. A week later, she wrote back.

On Friday, the old friends sorted through old letters, gifts and photos at the Engerts’ home. Nilsen’s wife Wenche doesn’t speak much English but she said she has happily encouraged their reunion. Over lunch, she invited Rowlison to come visit them at their summer lake house in Norway.

Nilsen said it’s been rewarding to refresh the long-ago relationship that ended nearly six decades ago.

“I’m very happy that I looked her up,” he said. “I just wish I had done it sooner.”